


Alpha Female

by EldritchMage



Series: Logan and Rachel Osaka [2]
Category: Wolverine and the X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 09:26:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3687018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchMage/pseuds/EldritchMage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is Part 2 of my Logan/Rachel series. Hope you enjoy it!</p><p>Logan tried to do the right thing by Rachel Osaka. He loved her, so he left her. That was the only thing that would keep her safe from the riffraff who tended to take a dim view of the mutant known as Wolverine. But Sabertooth didn't get the memo about that, and so decides to give Logan a birthday present he'll remember -- just like the one he gave Logan the day he killed Silver Fox.</p><p>There's going to be cutting, but birthday cake isn't what'll be left in pieces.</p><p>Leave me a comment to tell me what you think. Thanks!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alpha Female

**Author's Note:**

> I have tried to be very respectful of the elements of Japanese culture I described in this story, and imbue them with the honor and decorum they deserve. It is a fascinating culture, and I hope my description does it justice.

My name’s Logan. When I’m working, they call me the Wolverine. You know the rest.

With any luck, all you know about Rachel Osaka is that her parents were assassinated a few months ago. I hope you don’t know that she ended up at the Xavier Institute after the funerals, exhausted and numb, not knowing why her parents were murdered or whether she was the real target. Or that her mutant name is Omen and she can see the past and foretell the future with just a touch, a talent that put her at risk of joining her parents. Or that I started out as her bodyguard, became her teacher, and ended up her lover.

If you know any of that, then so do people who still might want to kill her. But Charles Xavier, the world’s most powerful telepath, did a damned good job of keeping Rachel’s and my name from being associated in the media. All that was reported was that she narrowly avoided a second assassination attempt with the help of a “government agent.” Ironic, that, because I wasn’t working for any government when Rachel and I fought our way out of that mess. It was as brutal as government wet work – without my healing factor, we both would have died – but at least I didn’t end up in a lab somewhere to be mind wiped afterward. Rachel wasn’t someone I wanted to forget.

Once Rachel healed, I brought her home from San Francisco to New York. The trip was a sweet, slow, three-month ride on my Harley, meandering as our moods took us, and along with the sights we savored each other as often as our hormones craved and our exhaustion allowed. But eventually, we came back to New York and separate lives. Neither of us wanted that, but that’s the way I made it.

She was young, rich, accomplished, gentle. An antiques dealer, for cripe’s sake. Mortal.

I was immortal in all but name, and the best at dealing death.

Not a good combination.

More importantly, I didn’t want Rachel crossing paths with my enemies. I didn’t want any black ops team deciding that they wanted her talents, either. So when I dropped her at her uptown New York condo with a long hug and a longer kiss, I kept my regret to myself until I was a good block away.

I rode for hours afterward – not that it helped. Rachel had liked to ride with her hands on my ribs to steady herself, and I’d gotten so used to her body next to mine that her absence sucked. Eventually I holed up in a two-bit dive somewhere to work through a case of beer in as many minutes, trying to get drunk enough to sleep before my damned healing factor sobered me up to face her loss.

For the next week, I spent a lot of time in the Danger Room of the Xavier Institute. Chuck knew I was there. So did the rest of the X-Men, but no one ventured near. My state of mind was obvious, so they let me work out my loss alone, which is just what I wanted.

Wrong. What – who – I wanted was Rachel.

Eventually I chilled enough to take a couple of freelance jobs. Nothing I can talk about, but the money was right, and I had the mindset for them. Two months later, I ended up back at the Institute for the night and got suckered into handling martial arts classes again. I was real intense about it, and even the little kids didn’t cut up in class, but eventually I remembered how to talk instead of growl. Eventually my beer consumption dropped to a human level.

Reality intruded on my birthday. Every year, my old nemesis Sabretooth got his kicks by trying to kill me. He wasn’t particular about who else he offed when he came after me, so I made a point of never being around friends – hell, people at all – on the occasion. So as usual, I upped my workouts and ran Danger Room sims until the Institute thought Armageddon had come and gone, getting myself into shape for Sabretooth’s annual visit. I’d never beaten him, but I’d lived to tell the tale, barely.

A couple of days before the event, I took myself off to someplace remote and waited.

For the first time in years, the bastard didn’t show.

I waited a good week just to make sure that the guy hadn’t lost track of time, then came back to the Institute, where life went on. Classes came and went, Danger Room drills with the X-Men crashed and boomed, I went through the motions.

One night I checked the email I’d ignored for weeks. Among the spam was a note from Rachel. A month old. After my pulse slowed down, I debated whether to read it or delete it.

My bones are coated with adamantium. My heart isn’t.

Email doesn’t carry pheromones or tone of voice or the caress of a lover, but the message didn’t read like Rachel had had any easier time during the past months than I had. One thing led to another, despite my resolve, and we decided to get together. She had a business venture she wanted to put to me. And she wanted to spar with me again as we had when we’d first met.

Funny. Sometimes Japanese katanas are fighting blades, and sometimes they’re arrows from a naked Greek kid with wings.

I kept her visit to myself, but all she had to do was show up at the Institute and the news spread like a gasoline fire. A lot of kids found reasons to gather in the main hall as soon as Rachel walked through the door. She carried two long wooden boxes.

“Hello, Logan,” was all her voice said. Her eyes said a lot more, and her pheromones were off the charts. Mine weren’t any farther behind. You’d think I’d get it after all these years, that people who get close to me incur a death sentence, because either my enemies will kill them, or I’ll outlive them. My path can never be anything but solitary. But when Rachel met my eyes, all I could think about was sweeping us off to someplace private – too abrupt, too full of assumptions. Instead, I savored the fall of silky, raven hair across her cheek, her exquisite body gloved in the black workout gear that suited her so well – you get the idea.

“Hey, kid,” I nodded. It felt foreign to smile, but I managed a hair. “Been a while. How’ve you been?”

“Okay,” she nodded. Her eyes slid away from mine to take in the gathering horde, then returned to look me up and down once. It was subtle, but it made my hair stand on end. “You look good.”

 _You can’t begin to know how good you look,_ I thought, and if Rachel didn’t hear my thoughts, she saw my eyes, and blushed.

I scratched the back of my head. “Kept busy. You bring your blade?”

Her smile widened. “I did. And I brought you a present. May we go into the library?”

“Sure.” I led the way into the baronial tribute room to all things British and literary. Of course, the kids started to drift in after us.

“Do you mind an audience?” she asked me quietly in Japanese.

“Not if you don’t.”

“Are you familiar with the care taken during a viewing?”

It’d been a while since I’d taken part in one, but I nodded.

“Then I don’t mind if the children watch.”

I looked back at the kids, hesitating now because of our quiet, alien words. “C’mon ahead. Just mind your manners.”

As the kids moved into the room after us, Rachel carefully put the two boxes down on the big library table. I helped her move the chairs out of the way, then she took a small roll of fine silk from her bag and draped it over the table. She then produced two small pillows and two clean white cloths. The straightforward, serene formality of her movements told me several things. First, a lot of years in training were responsible for those deceptively simple movements. Second, this ceremony meant a lot to her. And third, what she was about to present to me was a sword.

Rachel turned to the kids ringing the table. “Before I go further, let me explain. I am presenting Logan-kyoshi with a _daisho_ – a set of Japanese swords. I don’t expect you to know all the ins and outs of this very formal ceremony. But there are a few things I do ask of you. All right?”

Everyone nodded, even Scott and Xavier in the back.

“All right. First, please don’t touch the swords, or talk when the blades are exposed. Human sweat and saliva are acid and can damage the metal. Second, they are working blades, not presentation pieces, so they are very, very sharp, and therefore, very, very dangerous. Once the blades are sheathed, you can ask any questions you want. Ready?”

There were more eager nods. When everyone was silent, Rachel turned back to the boxes, and opened the first one.

Inside was a matched pair of antique blades – a _katana_ , or long sword, and its matching shorter _wakizashi_ , or honor blade. They were both in beautiful scabbards and the hilts featured honor knots. Rachel placed the two small pillows on the silk and bowed respectfully to the blades. When she took up the katana and drew it with her left hand to show nonaggression, there were several faint oohs and aahs, quickly smothered. All eyes were on Rachel as she wiped the katana blade with the cloth, then placed it carefully on the silk with the bottom third of the blade resting on the small pillow, hilt nearest to her. She repeated the same gestures to place the wakizashi. She placed the cloth by the hilts, bowed to the blades, then bowed to me.

When I bowed back, she stepped aside so I could inspect the blades.

I followed her example, bowing to the blades, then stepping forward and taking the cloth in my right hand. When I picked up the katana left-handed, I did it smoothly so that the point didn’t dip, and I rested the blade about halfway down on the cloth. Then I savored.

The katana was a jewel carved in steel, for all that it didn’t sparkle. The hilt was wrapped in ray skin and the knot, a simple working tie rather than a fancy lord’s knot, was red silk, faded with age but still supple. The _ji-hada_ shading, produced when a clay slurry was applied in varying thicknesses to the different parts of the blade during forging to control cooling, offered a subtle ripple of light down the length. It balanced in my hand like an extension of my arm.

I replaced the blade on its pillow, took one step back, and bowed. Then I went through the same measured steps with the wakizashi. Most people thought of this shorter blade as the one with which samurai committed _seppuku_ , or ritual disembowelment, and they were right about that. But I also recalled a few fights where such a blade had let me render that service to my opponents rather than myself, an outcome I certainly preferred.

When my examination was complete, I bowed deeply to Rachel.

She bowed back to me, then approached the blades again, bestowing all proper respect as she resheathed them both. She picked up the katana horizontally with the cutting edge facing her, the hilt in her left hand and the cutting end in her right. She bowed to me and held it out.

I bowed as deeply before taking the blade. I quickly reversed its position, so that the sharp edge of the blade faced me and the hilt was in my left hand to signal nonaggression, and I replaced it in its box. We repeated the steps with the wakizashi.

“The katana is a two-body blade,” she said softly in Japanese, telling me this was a damned good one. During the heydays of the samurai, criminals met their fate at the end of a katana rated for the purpose. Some blades were keen enough to sever the flesh and bone of a limb, but others were good enough to slice through up to five torsos in a variety of specialized blows. Such tests were long past, but the terminology had hung around. Anything rated higher than a two-body blade went for hundreds of thousands. “I hope it pleases you, Logan-kyoshi.”

“It’s beautiful,” I murmured in kind, catching her eyes for a long moment. I heard a stifled giggle or two, so I guess the kids figured out despite the language difference what I really meant and about whom.

Rachel smiled, sharing her amusement with me, and switched to English. “So why don’t you ask me to help you try them out, Logan-kyoshi?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Okay, why don’t you help me try them out, Rachel-san?”

“In our class, Mr. Logan?” an excited voice interrupted.

I swiveled and found Andrew in the gathering. He was a small eight-year old, slight with silky purple hair, slanted purple eyes, pointed ears, and an elfin face. Right now, he was barely able to keep himself from hopping from foot to foot in his excitement.

“You haven’t cancelled class today, Mr. Logan. It’s in twenty minutes. Since we’re still having class, can you use your new swords? Please?”

Damn. In my anticipation of Rachel’s visit, I’d forgotten about Andrew’s class. Several other voices quickly chimed in, so I couldn’t bow out. I scanned the room, found Rogue grinning at me with Bobby behind her. When she gave me a thumbs up, she wasn’t referring only to the swords. Even Jean lingered behind the kids with Ororo. It was the first time Cyclops had ever smiled at me – even though it was a smug, satisfied smirk.

I turned back to Rachel with a rueful grin. “Rachel-san, this is Andrew Skyler. The one who drew those portraits for us of your Japanese colleagues.”

“Hello, Andrew,” Rachel held out her hand. “Those portraits of yours were spectacular.”

Andres beamed as he shook hands. “Thanks. What’s in the other box?”

“My katana and wakizashi. Would you like to see them?”

“You bet!” Andrew exclaimed.

“All right. I won’t take them out of their scabbards, so we don’t have to be so formal.”

That’s all it took. In a heartbeat, the kids gathered around the library table to look at Rachel’s blades cradled in their box. Hers were a near match to the ones she’d given me, and before long, the kids had her answering questions and pointing out the blades’ finer points. She spoke quietly but confidently about the blades, where they’d come from, who had made them, even a little Japanese history. I didn’t hear much of it because I was too busy watching her. Sure, I’d missed her. But on top of that, Rachel was a good teacher who knew how to interest the kids without speaking down to them.

“So will you use yours in class today, Mr. Logan?” Andrew persisted. “Please?”

I looked at Rachel. “Maybe I’ll have help in class, eh?”

“Absolutely,” Rachel agreed with a quick bow. “Whenever you’re ready, Logan-kyoshi.”

“What’s kee-oh-shee mean, Miss Rachel?” Andrew persisted.

“It means master teacher of martial arts.” Rachel pointed at me. “That’s what Mr. Logan is. It’s a term of respect.”

Heads swiveled my way. I took advantage of the attention. “Ten minutes. Fencing room.”

The kids scattered without another word. I looked back at Rachel as she put the small pillows and silk back in her bag.

“They usually run like that when class is over, not when it’s about to start,” I groused.

Jean came forward with a smile and a hug for Rachel. “I bet you have a lot more students today than usual, Logan. Rachel, that was wonderful. It’s so good to see you again.”

“You, too, Jean. I’m happy to visit.”

Jean glanced at me. “Good thing you did. Anybody who can get a smile out of Logan these days is welcome. I think he’s broken everything in the Danger Room at least twice since he came back from your trip.”

Before Rachel said anything, I held up my hands. “Gotta change.”

I made a swift escape as Bobby and Rogue came forward to say hello. Upstairs, I found some mostly decent sweat pants, a tee shirt, some sneakers, and hoped the crowd would be gone by the time I headed back down. Sure enough, when I looked over the landing, Rachel was waiting for me, blessedly alone, with the boxes in her arms. I took the stairs two at a time. By the time I reached the bottom, Rachel had put the boxes on a chair in a rush, and reached for me as soon as I reached for her. We kissed – simple word, very complex action.

“Missed you, darlin’,” I said when we broke for air.

“I can tell,” she breathed, smiling looking at her bare hands on my arms. To me, her touch was balm. To her, empath that she was, it was like drinking my emotions from a fire hose. She filled her hands with my long hair and tugged it before she kissed me again. “But not as much as I’ve missed you. It hurt.”

“Damn’ straight,” I replied, my hands full of her hair as I savored another kiss. I gave the hall a quick scan, because I heard surreptitious steps. “C’mon, before the horde swarms again.”

We grabbed the boxes and ran out to the gym.

 

* * *

 

As fast as we ran, we still didn’t beat all of the kids to the fencing room. A few already loitered on the floor. Rachel smothered a smile and squeezed my hand before I took my place at the front of the room in the classic dojo posture, sitting on my heels, hands on my thighs. She put her katana box down, took out the long blade, and placed it in the rack off to one side. Then she came quietly onto the floor, her demeanor changing with each step to one of calm discipline. She sat herself down as I had, facing me. She gave me a wink as we waited for the rest of the kids to come in.

Jean was right. It looked like most of the kids had found a reason to tiptoe in, and even Chuck in his wheelchair was in the back with ‘Ro, Jean, and Scott. Most took Rachel’s posture as a cue and arranged themselves similarly on the floor to face me. The room was quiet, full of anticipation. I glanced at Rachel, who crossed her eyes impishly despite her sober Zen posture. I arched an eyebrow, but left it at that.

“Too bad all my classes aren’t this popular,” I noted wryly, drawing surreptitious laughter. “Guess that’s due to the lady who’s gonna help me today. This is Rachel Osaka. Welcome, Osaka-san.”

I bent towards her in a formal bow. The kids were quiet, attentive to the formality of the greetings.

Rachel returned it gravely. “I am honored, Logan-kyoshi.”

I bowed back. “As are we.”

I switched my gaze to the others in the room. “We’ve been workin’ on the basic set of moves in this class. The rest of you have already studied them. So Rachel and I will show you how they should be performed.”

Once everyone moved back against the walls, Rachel and I ran through the moves once very slowly to warm up, then again more at speed. Before we ran through the moves for the third time, Rachel shed her sweater so it didn’t hinder her mobility. She was still the delicate, very feminine woman I remembered, but there was more steel under her skin, more intensity. When we cranked up the speed, she was much faster than I remembered, and she’d been no slouch before. We whipped through the moves like a pair of tornados. When we finished, the kids spontaneously burst into applause.

“You’ve been practicin’,” I murmured in Japanese.

“I have,” she agreed in the same language, and something in her eyes told me that she’d have more to say about that later. “Want to free style?”

“You sure?” I cautioned, indicating our audience.

“You’re the best, Logan-kyoshi. I want to see how much better I’ve gotten.”

I bowed acceptance. “Have at it. Best shot you got.”

Rachel nodded, and fetched her wakizashi to accompany her katana. Far from standard, that – more like street fighting. I decided to do the same while I had the chance.

Before Rachel took up her stance, she turned to the kids. “Logan-kyoshi has consented to a match with me. This is not a ritual, and it is very dangerous, given the keenness of these blades. What’s more, Logan-kyoshi puts no limits on my fighting, because that is his preference – for me to do my best. As a master, however, he fights with restraint because I don’t have the healing factor that he does. Remember that when you are in his class.”

That was unexpected, but I appreciated it, and nodded my thanks to Rachel as I went into my stance. A lot of faces in the room looked thoughtful, so I didn’t spoil the mood, just kept my expression neutral.

We squared off again. When we’d first met, she’d been so numb that I’d pushed her for a week before I’d gotten her to actually fight. That wasn’t an issue now. Today, Rachel Osaka burned. My concentration focused to its finest to parry her thrusts, rebuff her attacks, all without touching her skin with the edge of either blade (though I did thwack her with the flat sides without remorse). She drew blood only once, and it was minor given my healing factor, but the kids oohed, so I grinned and saluted Rachel on the touch when she backed off. It was a good, long match and reminded me just how much I’d enjoyed this when Rachel had first arrived. Now, given how much better she’d gotten, it was a joy.

Eventually, we stopped and faced each other with a bow. Then I got the kids moving quickly to get their practice wands, and Rachel and I divided them up between us and put them through the basic parries and thrusts they’d been working on. They were a lot more focused today, a lot better at the moves, a lot more eager to work. Half an hour after class should have ended, I waved a stop to it all.

“Enough,” I called. “I want to see that same focus next class, all of you.”

Rachel faced me and made a formal bow. Damned if the kids didn’t imitate her and do the same thing. It was a nice gesture, and I bowed back before I dismissed them.

“Thank you, Logan,” Chuck wheeled forward with Scott, Jean, and ‘Ro in tow as the kids filed out. “And thank you, too, Rachel. That was quite a wonderful lesson you both put on. I wonder if you’d consider offering your teaching skills on a more regular basis to the children, Rachel.”

“Hello, Professor,” Rachel had wiped her blades clean, carefully sheathed them, and replaced them in their box before she bent down to hug Chuck. “It’s good to see you all again. This was fun. But you should ask Logan-kyoshi whether he wants an assistant or not.”

That surprised me, given how far away we were from the city where Rachel lived, but everyone looked expectantly at me as I put my cleaned and sheathed blades back in their box. I glanced at her.

“We’ll... talk about it. Among other things.”

“I hope you do,” Chuck replied. “The improvement in the children’s work was gratifying. But now that class is over I’m sure you both have other things on your mind.”

Rachel smiled gracefully, but I smelled her pheromones crank up, heard her heart accelerate, saw her eyes brighten, and did my best to keep my body from following. This was one of the times when being around a psychic as powerful as Chuck was awkward. I took up my sword box and beckoned to Rachel.

“One or two,” I nodded. “Got any preferences for dinner, Rachel-san?”

We made our exit before anyone asked whether we intended to have dessert before we ate.

 

* * *

 

We managed to restrain ourselves long enough to change clothes before we headed out. Rachel’s elegant black Jaguar beckoned outside the main entrance of the mansion, but she put her sword box in the front seat, grabbed her satchel, and practically dragged me towards the garage.

“Do you still have your Harley?”

“You know it. Come on.”

For the first time in months, I ripped out of the garage with a roar and an attitude. We didn’t have the comm units that let us talk over the noise, but I didn’t need to talk. Rachel’s hands caressed my ribs again, where they belonged.

I drove around no place special, eventually heading up into the forests around the mansion. I had a spot or two where I’d been known to perch when I wanted space away from people. One was on a hill with a clutch of big rocks and a good view of the valley below. I killed the hog and we clambered up to the flat grassy spot under a maple tree beside the highest rock.

Rachel pulled a light blanket out of her bag and tossed it on the ground. Then she twined her hands in my hair and pulled me into an embrace.

“I have been dying for months to do this.”

I surrendered without a fight. “Don’t die, darlin’. I’ve got a lot of this to get out of my system.”

“Do it,” she whispered, so I lay back with her on top of me and we didn’t talk for a while. Eventually, we rested in the afternoon sun.

“Logan…”

“Shhhhh.”

Rachel lay beside me, her head against my shoulder, her arm across my chest. Her fingers started to trace circles on my chest, straying close to the rib where I was ticklish, teasing but not quite triggering my flinch.

I took her hand. “Teasin’ me ain’t the best thing to do right now.”

“There’s no one I like teasing more. What are you going to do about it?”

“You’ve developed a perverse streak since I last saw you, darlin’.”

“I’ve always known what I want. I’m more willing to say so these days.”

I didn’t need to smell Rachel’s emotions to know where this was going. I didn’t say anything because there was no satisfaction for either of us if I did. Better to hold my tongue and put off the inevitable as long as I could.

“You’re still a man of few words, Logan,” Rachel prodded gently.

I squeezed Rachel’s shoulders, but didn’t speak. She loosed her fingers from my hand and went back to tracing circles on my chest. This time, though, she ran over that rib to trigger my flinch. She did it twice just to make sure I was awake.

“Rachel –” I protested, capturing her fingers again.

“Well, you won’t talk,” she giggled. “What else can I do?”

“What about this?” I rolled over, capturing her underneath me, and kissed her almost as hard as we both wanted. “If all you can think about is tormentin’ my ribs, then I haven’t taught you well enough about the rest of me.“

Instincts got the best of us again. I wasn’t the only aggressor. Rachel was the most adept lover I’d ever savored, and the things she did were impossible to resist. More than that, there is something so heady about a woman who is unafraid to enjoy herself, unafraid to show her enjoyment, and that drove me to an equal intensity. I had so missed this woman.

I was back to why I had to miss her.

I pushed that thought away. Hadn’t I learned yet to savor the moment, be in the moment –

“I might be able to ease some of that angst if you’d let me,” Rachel said softly.

That brought me up short, but it also stopped my mental thrashing. I grinned ruefully. “You never stop readin’, especially with all this skin contact… I remember now, Yogensha.”

“And you rat me out because you can smell my emotions, hear my heartbeat, practically see the pores in my skin open and close. We both can ferret out secrets, Logan.”

She twitched her finger over my rib again, making me spasm. “All right, woman, all right. You wanna talk, talk.”

Now that the moment had come, I had to smile because Rachel was at a loss for words. She laughed at herself sheepishly, sat up, and eased her tee shirt and jeans back on. I got back into my jeans, and mirrored her cross-legged seat to face her.

“You didn’t fool me when you brought me back to my condo, you know,” she began. “It was all there in your skin. I’m sure your senses told you the same thing about me. But I know why you wanted to go, and I thought maybe you were right. Maybe after we went back to our lives, the whole thing would end up being a wonderful fling and that would be that. But that didn’t happen for me. It doesn’t feel like that happened for you, either.”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins. “I thought about why you hadn’t wanted to stay together. You told me about Sabretooth. Victor Creed. Remember?”

It was impossible not to. It had been an early summer morning in Alberta…

 

* * *

 

I woke in the small cabin curled around Rachel, bathed in the smell of cool morning before the sun had risen to warm it into steamy July. It was still early, even though we’d been up late the night before, intent on each other. Afterward, I’d lain awake with Rachel asleep beside me, debating with myself as I had almost since I’d met her, as I did now –

“Are you going to tell me or not?” Rachel murmured, rolling over and snuggling against my chest. Her eyes were still shut, and her silky hair lay across her cheek as if she were still asleep.

I smoothed the hair out of her eyes. “Tell you what?”

“Whatever you’ve been batting back and forth for the past day or so. Probably longer.”

“Thought you weren’t a yogensha, darlin’.”

“Sometimes I am. So…?” Rachel asked.

“Mmmm?”

“Tell me. It feels like something I need to know.”

I gave up with a sigh. “It is, but I don’t have to like it. I want to you read me with every bit of your talent. It won’t be fun. Gotta tell you about a man called Sabretooth.”

She nodded somberly, so I thought about the huge mutant with as sadistically psychotic a brain as might exist. Right off, the emotions in my thoughts made her flinch. I held the impression until she trembled uncontrollably.

“God, Logan,” she whispered. “Who is he?”

“Scared?”

She nodded, swallowing.

“Good. You need to be.”

“Why?”

I sat up against the headboard of the bed and put my arms around Rachel. “His name is Victor Creed. He’s over two meters tall with a healing factor and the strength of a titan – I’ve never gotten the better of him in a fight. He really did volunteer for the adamantium process – went through it before I did. Despite how our handlers treated me, he got the idea that they thought I was the new and improved model to his original, so he kicked my ass regular and often. I’ve got claws, he’s got talons, we both have enhanced senses, but the real difference is upstairs. Sabretooth lives for the killing.”

I paused, took a breath. “I was married once. Sabretooth raped and killed my wife for no other reason than she was with me, and he got off on doing it.”

Rachel lay in my arms, quiet but struggling to find something to say. There were no words from anyone to ease that old wound, but I squeezed her shoulders to thank her for the effort.

“My wife wasn’t the first woman he did. Or the last. He’s made a habit of it for close to a century. So as much as I want to, I ain’t gonna stay with you after this trip, darlin’, because I don’t want him to add you to his string.”

Rachel rubbed my arm gently. “I never expected something permanent, Logan, even before I knew about Victor Creed. I age. You don’t. We both can do the math.”

I smelled the wishes behind her even words. They were a nice ego boost, but there was no sane thing for me to do about them but let them go. She stood better odds of survival without me than with me.

“More to the point, the scum in my life can hurt you. Creed’s the worst of ‘em, but not the only one. I want you to promise that if you ever get a line on this guy, even if he’s beatin’ the shit out of me, you will run as far and as fast as you can because he’d love to give you the same slow death that he gave Silver Fox. You have no chance against this guy.”

“You can’t make me promise to abandon you in a fight.”

“Rachel,” I said gruffly, “I’ll live through whatever Creed dishes out. But I don’t want to watch you die. If you don’t promise to run, I’m gone startin’ now and you’ll never see me again. For your own good.”

Her jaw tightened and her eyes glowed not with her talent but anger – unusual, that. Rachel was the least confrontational person I’d ever known, and she had a knack for turning disagreement into discussion, so my threat must’ve stung her. “If this psycho is as vindictive as you say, it won’t matter where you are. If he knows about me and wants to hurt you through me, he’ll find me.”

She’d called my bluff. I grimaced, conceding, and her eyes softened. “You’re right. But it ain’t safe for you to be with me, darlin’ –”

“And not much safer if I’m not.”

I sighed. “It is, but I take your point about nothin’ bein’ sure. But trust what I ask of you. Promise me that you’ll run as soon as you get the chance.”

A long silence, then, “All right.” Her body revealed the lie in her words, so one day I’d have to convince her otherwise. “But I hope I never cross his path.”

“Me, either,” I said, and told her about why I’d never be with her on my birthday. That’d been the day Silver Fox had died. Creed visited me each year to make sure I never ran out of salt for the wound.

“Can’t anything be done to stop –”

I put my fingers on her lips. “Darlin’, it’s a world you can’t imagine. I left black ops, but they call me the renegade. Creed’s still part of that, and he’s just what Department H set out to make in the Weapon X program. So they ain’t about to stop him.”

“You’re right. I can’t imagine.” She looked away, put her head on my chest again, but then looked up suddenly. “You say he does this every year? Does that mean he doesn’t try to kill you, just almost kill you?”

I stroked her hair, easing her head back against my chest. “Oh, he tries, darlin’. Damn’ if he doesn’t try, and he’d take it in a heartbeat. I’ve just managed to hold him off, that’s all.”

“What if you killed him?”

“I’ve tried like hell to. The only way to do it is to either suffocate or drown him so his brain starves for lack of oxygen, or cut off his head and keep it from the rest of his body. I thought I had once, but I guess I didn’t separate the pieces far enough. Just like he didn’t keep me under water long enough.”

Rachel shuddered. “I can’t believe I’m actually listening to this, knowing you’re not making it up.”

I grimaced. “It oughta scare hell out of you. I’m not much less of a monster than he is.”

“You just said yourself that you are – you try to avoid killing and he lives for it. And I remember what I did when Seiji’s bullet exploded out of your chest along with your heart and half your spine. I used my talent to know where Seiji’s thugs were going to be two seconds later, and I used my father’s katana to kill them. I’m no less of a monster than anyone else.”

“Yes, you are,” I said, and I meant it. But I’d been the one who’d introduced Rachel to that rage, who was telling her about Sabretooth now, who put her at risk by just being with her. Not for the first time I thought about heading straight for New York and freeing her from the nightmares that trailed me.

“Not yet,” Rachel whispered. “I’ve always known that this isn’t forever. But don’t end it yet.”

I listened to her, but only because adamantium didn’t coat my common sense any more than it did my heart.

* * *

 

“I remember. You asked a lot of questions about Creed,” I recalled as my memories faded. “And today, when we sparred, it’s clear you’ve spent a lot of the last months with that katana. You were wicked fast before. Now you’re damn’ evil.”

She grinned, pleased despite the general tenor of our conversation. “Thank you. But playing with my katana isn’t the only way I’ve spent my time.”

“Let’s hear it, then.”

“My grandmother decided she didn’t want to work so much anymore. She sold her shop to me, so I’m running it now. Two or three times a year, she’d go on a collecting trip to buy for the shop. It was pretty free-form, generally not longer than a couple of weeks. Gran isn’t going this time, so I’m making the trip myself, and it would be wonderful if you came with me.”

I exhaled and shut my eyes. “Darlin’, you know I’d spend any amount of time with you if it were safe. But this trip of yours won’t be ridin’ cross-country like a couple of thieves the way we did before. People are gonna know where you are, where you’ll stay –”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. So let me talk about how I’ve spent the past few months.”

She shifted. “You know the best thing about having a lot of money, Logan? You can buy just about anything. I bought a two-meter goon whose job it was to try to beat me up three times a week. He did a good job of that for several weeks, until –”

“Damn it, Rachel, playin’ with some goon can’t give you enough luck to stay out of Creed’s hands –”

“I know it, Logan. I know. Please, _shin-ai na_. Hear me out.”

Beloved, she called me. She’d never called me that before. My hackles went up because she thought she’d be safe like Silver Fox thought she’d been safe –

“Hear me out,” she repeated.

I swallowed and took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, Rachel. I’m listenin’. But it ain’t easy.”

“I know,” she winced in sympathy. “I know, Logan. I can smell your fear, and I can hear your heart from here.”

I narrowed my gaze. “ _You_ can smell _my_ fear?”

She nodded. “I’ll get to that. Three times a week I tried to figure out what advantages I had against someone like Creed. I’m small and I won’t ever have enough strength to match the force of a 200-kilo, adamantium-laced skeleton and enhanced strength and a healing factor. But I have a lot less mass to move. I’m very fast. I can go farther on less energy than you or Sabretooth ever can hope to match. I can see where you’ll be in time before you even know it yourself, so if I get that warning I can be out of the way. So my best chance is a good defense.”

“That’s what I’ve tried to tell you –”

She squeezed my hand, quieting me with the silent plea in her eyes.

“I’m not as driven by rage the way you or Sabretooth can be. I’m a lot more liable to plan things ahead of time than either of you are. Add that to money, and I have more of the means to put something in place ahead of time than he does, whatever that might be. Those aren’t much use in the heat of the moment, so my best shot is still to stay out of his hands. But I didn’t settle just for that.”

I blew past what she said about planning – I shouldn’t have, but that was my nature – and latched onto the part about not settling for mere avoidance. I tried hard not to growl, but I was subvocalizing as badly as a cornered wolf. Rachel winced again.

“You can hear that?” I snarled. “Damn it, Rachel, what else have you gotten yourself into?”

She smiled as if she marveled at something. “You have no idea. I didn’t, either, when I started. But another thing you can buy with a lot of money is research. I found out some interesting nuggets about mutant talents. Did you know that once you have one, on rare occasions you can nudge yourself into other ones, or push yours higher under some kinds of stress? For example, the stress of fighting off Kinker – that’s the two-meter goon, and he’s actually an okay guy – pushed my physical abilities a little. A mutant equivalent to human growth hormone pushed them a little more. I can’t smell or hear or see as well as you can, but I can better than most humans. My joints are more flexible. I learned to move very, very quietly.”

“None of that sounds legal.”

“It wouldn’t be, if I were a pro athlete. But I’m not, and I’m not selling what I found. Now comes the hard part. What if despite everything I did, I still ended up in Victor Creed’s hands? You told me he’d try to rape me. If he does, he’ll find that a nasty little surprise will shut down his nervous system for a few minutes –”

My jaw clenched. “Dentata, eh? Now it’s me who can’t believe I’m listenin’ to you, knowing you ain’t makin’ it up.”

“No, I’m not. And don’t think I’m cocky about this. Some of it scares me to death. But given that this is reality, I did what was needed to protect myself.

“Now for the last few items. I have a GPS transmitter implanted where it can’t be removed without major surgery. I can trigger it to send different kinds of alerts with the right twitch. I’ve also got a jammer that keeps me from being electronically overheard. It’s on now, so no one can overhear what we’re saying. I’ve also worked on my original talent and if I concentrate, I can see an object’s place in time without touching it – people, too. I’m not adept at that yet, but I can see about ten or fifteen seconds ahead. All of these are defensive assets, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

I shut my eyes. “All fine and good, kid, but I don’t have to like it.”

“Logan,” Rachel said, putting her hand on my arm. “It’s done. It was already done long before I thought about needing protection. It was done the day you and I left Westchester for San Francisco.”

The day Rachel and I first made love, she meant, and she was right. I’d put her at risk by giving in to the most basic of human desires. I’d done it again by seeing her today. I _knew_ what my karma was; I _knew_ it, yet here I was, acting like the world’s biggest fool –

“I had a lot to say about it,” she replied as if she’d heard my thoughts. “I didn’t have to go with you, accept what you offered, offer anything myself. You know why I did. We’re both the cause of this.”

I glared at her. “Sounds like you’re readin’ a lot more than my emotional state right now.”

She shrugged and didn’t rise to my snarl. “Your emotional state has always been easy for me to sense. I know how you think a lot of the time. Sabretooth just is. I don’t like it, but he is. And whether you and I stay physically close or not, he may stumble my way sometime. So even if you had refused to ever see me again, I still would have done all that I have done to protect myself. I’m not going to let anyone intimidate me into not living my life. Even you, Logan.”

There was nothing to say. She was right, no matter how much I wanted to protect her.

“So please, Logan, come with me. Just for two weeks. I’ve missed you.”

I shut my eyes. Two weeks would only be the start of it, and we’d both want more when that was gone, then more again, on and on until someone killed her or she got old and died. It had been a mistake for me to ever give into that want, and today was the day I’d have to convince her of it. “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Come with me into the Danger Room. Run through the sims I put together for myself to prepare for Creed. See what you’re in for.”

She thought about it. “All right.”

Why wouldn’t she? She’d live through the sims. But maybe they’d scare her out of thinking that she’d live through the real thing. If I made them bad enough, maybe she’d get smart and see things my way.

I didn’t know whether to hope she would or not.

 

* * *

 

The only concession I granted Rachel when I took her into the Danger Room was a chance to see the holographic Sabretooth up close before I started the sim. The long Viking mane of pale hair, the soulless black eyes, and the ratty Neanderthal fur coat were intimidating enough, but I wanted it to sink in that he was over a half meter taller than she was. Each of his hands was as big as two or three of hers. Each of his talons was four centimeters long and solid, razor-edged adamantium. Rachel probably weighed all of 45 kilos. I’m no lightweight at 90 kilos with about 30 kilos of adamantium on my frame, but Creed was close to 140 kilos. When I had the hologram fix unblinking eyes on her and grin in that nasty way he had with women, I was satisfied to see Rachel blanch – but I didn’t unleash the full force of the guy yet.

For that, I waited until her back was turned, and I had him jump her. He stifled her scream when he grabbed her around the throat, shredded most of her clothes and a lot of skin with his talons, then pinned her on the floor with his jaws around her throat and worse nastiness to bear lower down. Only then did I kill the sim, leaving Rachel to lie gasping on the bare grid of the floor.

“Damn it, Logan!” she shrieked.

I shrugged. “He won’t give you any more warnin’ than you just got.”

She put her hand to her throat and rubbed it.

“You wanna watch some of the ones I run on myself?” I suggested.

She nodded dumbly.

I cranked up the first one. The Danger Room melted into a Canadian forest scented with pine and snow, remote but tranquil. The sky overhead was slightly overcast, and a slight breeze blew.

“Stay behind me. The sim will react to you if you get too close.”

Rachel obeyed, trailing me by about twenty meters. I set out walking, getting into the sounds, smells, and sights as if this were real.

There. A faint scent.

“Smell that?” I asked softly, easing my claws out. “That’s him. Musky.”

After a second or two Rachel said, “I smell it.”

Impressive. I hadn’t expected her to pick up such a faint odor –

Damned if Creed didn’t rush out of the trees, moving almost silently, but anything that big makes some noise, so I wasn’t there for him to land on. I raked him across the face, momentarily blinding him, but it didn’t take long before he healed and was after me again. Then he whacked me, and…

Twenty minutes into this, Rachel got the point. Creed wasn’t unstoppable like the Juggernaut, just everything but. He didn’t tire, he didn’t stay wounded, he was sadistic, and she didn’t have a chance. At one point, the fight got too close to her, and he got that nasty rapacious look in his black eyes again and lunged for her, talons outstretched.

I was gratified to see her duck almost as fast as I would have, flit by him, and shinny up a tree as fast as an animal.

I went back to slugging it out. I didn’t see Rachel slither out of the tree, but I spotted her maneuvering among the trunks, presenting almost no visual presence of her own. And when Creed smacked me down next to her, she didn’t back off. She jumped over me and ducked under Creed’s swipe to punch her fist as hard as she could into his larynx, crushing it. When he staggered, unable to breathe, the heel of her other hand smashed his nose into his brain, and she finished the deal by cutting his throat with her wakizashi I didn’t know she had. Creed’s body sprawled face up under the pines – but Rachel still didn’t back off. When she grabbed a handful of windpipe and ripped it out, I didn’t know whether to curse or applaud.

Looking at her face, I didn’t do either. I killed the sim, and let the blank grid surround us.

“Oh, my God,” Rachel shuddered, and turned her back to me. She looked at her hand as if she expected to see gore hanging from it. “That felt real…”

I got to my feet and came up behind her, but didn’t touch her. I didn’t need to, because I already smelled the moisture in her eyes and her emotional confusion of adrenaline rush, shock, fear, horror. I wanted to comfort her, but I wouldn’t when the sheer hellacious nastiness of what had just happened needed to sink in.

“You gonna listen to me now, kid?” I said roughly. “You wanna turn into what he is, what I am, where you kill people like that? Damn it, Rachel, you just ripped his throat out with your hand –”

“I know what I did!” she shouted, whirling around to confront me. She balled up her fist and swung at me. I pulled out of the way, not because she’d hurt me, but so she didn’t break a bone when she hit adamantium. “I know what I did.”

She looked at her hand as if she’d never swung at anyone like that before. She probably hadn’t. Then the tears came in silence, but what she lacked in sound she made up for in the smell of misery. She looked down at the floor and marshaled her breath as she grieved.

“How many more of these do you want me to watch?” she asked at last. Her voice was low, monotone.

“I never wanted you to watch any of ‘em.”

“I don’t want to watch any more of them.”

I nodded, but the knot in my throat made my voice rougher than Rachel deserved. “Good.”

She didn’t say anything else.

I still wasn’t going to touch her. But I gentled my voice as best I could around my own misery.

“Doin’ this goes against everythin’ I love about you, Rachel, because you ain’t cut out for it. You ain’t a killer. You’re gentle, even with a Canucklehead like me, you’re generous, you’re all any man could want or hope to treasure. I’ve already compromised you enough, and you’ve already torn yourself up enough tryin’ to live with what you’ve done. I don’t want you to keep goin’ through that.”

She still didn’t speak.

I exhaled. “Guess it’s time for you to go home.”

She headed for the door. There was nothing for me to do but follow.

The afternoon had turned to evening, and the light was just fading in the western sky when we emerged from the mansion and stood beside Rachel’s Jaguar. She lingered a moment, looking for her car keys, all but willing me to say something, but I didn’t dare. I’d scared her into sense, and I wanted her to stay that way, no matter what either of us wanted otherwise. But at the last minute, she snuck out a hand, touching my arm, and I betrayed us both. All I felt was mirrored in her eyes, matching her own wants. It didn’t matter. It had to be –

A faint, musky smell –

Recognition glowed in Rachel’s eyes just as I turned into Creed’s talons. They raked half my face off and the impact smacked me into the gravel beside Rachel’s car.

I staggered up in time to see Creed backhand Rachel over the hood of her car. She sprawled into such an awkward heap that she couldn’t be conscious. I howled –

Everything went black.

 

* * *

 

This part of the story falls to me rather than Logan, because when I woke up, he wasn’t conscious. I didn’t know where we were, only that it was full night, and Victor Creed was lifting me out of an enclosed van. I roused slowly – I think I may have been drugged – but soon realized what a dangerous spot I was in. I was draped over Victor Creed’s shoulder and he was about to drag Logan out of the van by a leg.

I shifted my jaw a millimeter, activating the GPS signal in my body. Creed had hit me so unexpectedly at the mansion that I hadn’t triggered it beforehand. With any luck, the signal would be picked up, and the whole chain of alerts that I’d set up months ago would come to life. I kept the rest of me dead limp.

Creed yanked Logan’s body out of the van, and it crashed heavily to the ground without any sign of life. Creed hauled him over the ground like so much meat. We were somewhere rural, because I heard insect noises and saw very little ambient light. It smelled organic, like a deep forest. Those impressions were fleeting, because Creed approached some kind of structure. He kicked a thick wooden door open and ducked inside with us in his hands. He slammed and locked the door, then let me fall to the floor. It was sandy, but underneath seemed to be a rough concrete floor. Then he dragged Logan to the far wall where a chain hung from a solidly embedded ringbolt.

I risked a look up while Creed’s back was turned. Maybe I had a concussion, because my vision was blurry for a moment before steadying, and my head hurt like a ten-ton weight had been dropped on it. I spotted spidery metal rafters high above me, and a doorframe that offered niches for my small hands and feet. I spasmed up, seized the door fixtures and frame, and propelled myself up the wall struts into the rafters as swiftly and silently as I could manage.

Creed’s head snapped around, but he didn’t know exactly where I was, just that I wasn’t where he’d left me. Then my stomach rebelled and I knotted into a ball as it tried to heave up what little was in it – a concussion for sure. I kept everything inside, but I couldn’t swallow all of the sounds that caused. In the near pitch, Creed looked up at me and bared his long canines in the smile of a hungry lion. The teeth were freakish enough, but the staring black eyes that seemed to have no pupils were worse, like those of a shark.

“Very good, pretty Miss Rachel. You’ve got the best seat in the house for the opening act.”

He threw Logan against the wall and got no reaction, so Logan was still unconscious. Creed leisurely looped the chain around Logan’s neck, tightened it until it pressed deeply into flesh, and locked it. He glanced up in the dark again, and made a show of tossing the key to the chain off to the right.

“Knock yourself out, Miss Rachel. It’s right there, anytime you want to come down and get it.”

I marked the location, but didn’t move. Even in the dark, I saw thick streaks of blood on the floor near Logan’s body. Creed must have come close to killing him to cause that much carnage. I wouldn’t last a New York minute if I were dumb enough to try for the key. I swallowed my fear, clamped down on my lungs, and told myself that this was no sim where I might get lucky with a punch or two. Logan was down and seriously hurt, and all that stood between me and his assailant were five meters of vertical space and a thin web of steel rafters too lightweight to hold 140 kilos of flesh and adamantium-laced skeleton.

Creed took his time moving around once he’d chained Logan, taking off his coat, turning on harsh, bare-bulb lights, and shoving bits of cast-off gear out of Logan’s reach. This was a single round room – it reminded me of those federal highway structures that held road salt or sand for winter use. The lower walls, however, had been reinforced with heavier timbers, even if the roof had not. There were no windows, and only the single door. I shivered hard enough that I almost slipped from my perch. I propped myself carefully against the rafters so that I wasn’t in danger of falling, my head was a bit higher than my feet, and I had a clear view of what went on below. My head rang and my stomach heaved with the motion, but I stayed conscious. I had to.

First, what did I have to work with? My cell phone was gone. So was the wakizashi I’d used in Logan’s sim. I still had most of my clothes, though they were the worse for wear, and my sneakers were gone. The best asset left to me was my brain, even if it wasn’t in the best shape after Creed’s backhand.

I thought about what I’d learned about Creed, and what I knew about Logan. Both ran on instinct and emotion. Both were both super-saturated with testosterone – this was an alpha male thing, and where other men would just exchange trash talk, these two would shed blood. On top of that, Creed was a sadist, and he’d try to get me to react by damaging Logan’s body. He’d use any upset I showed to goad Logan into rage, and around they would go again. So despite how gruesome this became, I couldn’t react to it. Creed might be able to smell me, but I had to withhold as many other reactions from him as I could.

Then I had to figure out how to get out of the cycle without dying. That was formidable enough. I wanted to get Logan out with me, too, but that would be even harder, especially given that chain.

Why would Creed bother to chain Logan when most metal wouldn’t withstand Logan’s claws? The answer had to be that the chain was adamantium. What an appallingly expensive waste. The thick ring in the wall was probably iron because it looked rusty, and the wooden wall holding the ring, while a substantial deterrent to me, wouldn’t be to Logan – if he stayed rational enough to realize it. If Creed kept him enraged or badly hurt, though, he might never notice anything but the chain. So I had one more reason to stay out of Creed’s hands – to give Logan more chances to stay in control of himself.

Of course, all this analytical thinking was well and good. But my head hurt terribly and all I wanted to do was sleep – that was the concussion talking as well as the remnants of whatever I’d been drugged with.

Creed was still moving around below, seemingly unaware of me, so I risked a look up. The roof arched too far over my head to see it well, but it looked sturdy. Maybe it was made of wood, so perhaps it wouldn’t block my GPS signal. Even if it did, I’d activated the signal a few seconds before Creed had brought me inside, long enough to start the alert chain. I wondered if I could climb up there –

“Hey, Rachel,” Creed called to me casually.

When I looked down, he leaped straight up, right at me. He grasped the rafter I perched on and gave it a shake, not enough to bring it down, but enough to show me that he could. Then he ran a finger across my cheek. I couldn’t keep myself from gasping, recoiling.

He laughed as he settled back on the ground. “Now you know I can reach you when I’m ready.”

I bit my lips, but I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything.

He shrugged. “Suits me if you want to watch me make hash out of your boyfriend from up there. Lots of people like stadium seating. But eventually I’ll get tired of playing with him, and it’ll be your turn to star in the main event. Hash won’t be what I make out of you – not at first. I wonder what’ll make you scream.”

Logan stirred at that, subvocalizing his anger enough that I felt it in my chest. Creed felt it, too, and turned on the smaller man with a growl. Logan, staggering to his knees, deflected Creed’s first blow with his claws, leaving streaks of blood along Creed’s arm. But Creed followed that with a terrific backhand.

“Did you think I’d forgotten you this year, shrimp?” Creed gloated as Logan slammed into the wall. “Sorry I’m late, but the chance to snare your uppity little rich bitch with you was too good to miss.”

Logan snarled and charged Creed again, who methodically set to beating Logan into pulp. I didn’t want to watch, but had to in case an opening arose. I’m not ashamed that I unfocused my gaze enough that I didn’t see the worst of the carnage. That didn’t shield me much, as my time sense showed me two and sometimes more views of each blow before it actually fell. As I’d learned with Kinker, stress forced my talents to their sharpest, and it was all I could do to hold my silence as the multiple images bombarded me. All those long minutes, probably hours, became the most difficult meditation exercise I’d ever forced myself to – to remain remote to the atrocities that two people could inflict on each other.

Sometimes, I wasn’t remote enough, and I had to look away and bite my hands to keep from crying out. But apparently I gave Creed little to work with, because he slowly lost his taste for the merely brutal. Eventually he snared Logan’s chain and used it as a garrote until Logan collapsed from lack of oxygen.

“See how easy it is?” Creed looked up again, then squatted down to cut a bloody line down Logan’s forearm with a talon. The blood ran slowly down to join the rest of the red on the floor. “He’s not even a good punching bag. Hey, did your boyfriend tell you what I did to his wife? Twice? Maybe it’s time for me to show you, little Rachel. Add you to my string.”

“Not likely, bub!” Logan growled as he whipped the middle of the chain around Creed’s neck and stuck a knee in Creed’s back to pull.

I was a second later in acting than I should have been, but while Creed writhed in Logan’s hands, I focused their time eddies, hoping I’d find the ten seconds I’d need to grab that key. There were eight. I dropped to the floor without thinking, nearly threw up, and scrabbled blindly to where Creed had thrown the key. I touched only sand, then the metal was in my fingers –

Creed’s hand seized my ankle, his talons digging into my flesh. I grabbed the key and kicked Creed hard, but he yanked me closer. I spasmed in absolute terror, and launched myself at him like a guinea hen would at a lion, flailing my arms like a maniac. He was surprised enough that he didn’t get a good hold on me. I dropped, punching up hard as I slithered between his legs. He doubled up, cursing, but he blocked me from the doorframe that was my path up to the rafters. I floundered to Logan’s side.

Logan shoved me behind him, where I finally did throw up. I took too long to regain control, precious seconds where Creed and Logan were locked in a tangle of claws and talons and hair. It cost Logan terribly, but he managed to keep Creed on the ground long enough for me to dodge around them. I staggered to the doorframe.

With a roar, Creed hurled Logan away and leaped after me. Even though I twitched out of the space where Creed’s hand would reach for me, gravity pulled me back into range on the other side. I came crashing down on top of the huge mutant, who quickly rolled on top of me. He pinned both of my wrists. One taloned finger dug into my fist for the key. What was worse, the physical contact flooded me with such violent emotions. I felt what he’d done to Logan’s wife, the terror and pain in which she’d died, and the orgasm he’d felt when her life ebbed away. It was so overwhelming that I gasped despite myself.

Creed’s eyes lit, and he licked his lips as his lust flooded me. “So you do have a voice,” he said with a caress in his words. “Let me hear you scream, little Rachel.”

“You first,” I snarled, and threw my head forward.

I got his lower lip in my teeth and bit down as hard as I could. When Creed howled, he let my wrists go. I had a fractured view of Logan as close to me as the chain allowed, and I lobbed the key at him in a spasm. He grabbed it out of the air, but I didn’t see any more as Creed raked my sides with his talons, slicing deeply enough that I screamed and loosed his lip. I jabbed out blindly, looking for soft tissue – eyes, throat, and nerve pressure points. I was in too much pain for my talent to focus, but when I forced myself to ignore the pain, my blows hit more targets. Maybe I got in a minor wound or two, but the best I could hope for was distraction, to give Logan time to get this monster off me.

It seemed like my life stopped in the pain of Creed’s raking attempts to tear off my clothes, his crushing, claustrophobic weight, and the vicious assault of his emotions that foreshadowed his intent to commit the physical act that Logan had warned me of months ago. I struggled to flex the right muscles to bring my last line of defense into play, the pharmacological equivalent of dentata. But all at once, the weight was dragged away – Logan had freed himself from the chain – and I kicked, punched, and gouged to help that along. I was almost free – no! Creed lunged, trapping me beneath him again, his mouth gaping wide for my throat, just as he had in Logan’s sim. I drove my skull up into his face hard enough to split his lips. He spat a curse –

Logan appeared behind Creed and twined one hand deeply in Creed’s long mane. With a snarl more animal than human, Logan wrenched Creed’s head back, away from me, and ripped a single claw across Creed’s bared throat. I shut my eyes before I completely registered the gaping wound, but I heard Logan’s claw scrape against vertebrae, and I felt warm blood drench my neck and chest and splatter my face. As Creed’s body spasmed from such a horrific wound, I fought to pull myself out from under him.

When I was free, Logan labored to haul Creed’s heavy bulk to the wall, keeping that awful wound wide open. I felt woozy, but I wiped the blood out of my eyes, staggered to Logan, and did my best to help pull. Once we had Creed close enough, Logan looped the adamantium chain around Creed’s neck, tightening and locking it into the gaping slice. Then he shoved Creed’s head down over the chain and the lock, forcing the raw, glistening sides of the wound together, where in a surreal moment the wound closed slowly over the chain. Only then did Logan let him go to help me out of range.

“How bad?” Logan rasped, pointing at me. He was a mess of ragged flesh and his throat was purple and shredded from the chain, but I watched in fascination as the wounds magically closed and healed.

“Okay,” I croaked, but sank to my knees. I held up a hand. “I’m okay. Really.”

“Huh,” Logan whuffed, casting a watchful look at Creed, who, while unmoving, was more or less conscious, if not happy with the placement of a certain chain. His healing factor seemed slower than Logan’s, for while the wound had closed, he still labored to breathe. “Maybe to stagger outa here and not much else, but that’s good enough. Hang on.”

Logan dismantled the door hinges with a few well-placed blows of his claws. He wrestled the heavy planking out of the frame and let it crash to the floor. Then he came to gather me into his arms.

“Wait a minute,” I croaked. “Mr. Creed wanted to hear my voice. So I’ll oblige him.”

“You’re crazy –”

I put a hand on Logan’s bloody forearm and cleared my throat. “No. I’m not.”

Logan felt my calmness and understood it wasn’t due to shock, and that while I was sick and hurt, I wasn’t in danger of dying. So he nodded.

Victor Creed, all two-plus horizontal meters of him, a nightmare in red with an adamantium chain through his neck, stared at me with soulless eyes and a thirst for my blood on his lips. I sat back on my heels and met his gaze.

“Do you know what the best thing is about having a lot of money is, Mr. Creed?” I asked softly. I fought to keep my voice low and even, my body from shaking. “I can buy a lot of things. Like access to information that most people don’t have, not even most mutants. I know about your Colonel Stryker and Dr. Cornelius and the Weapons X project, and the names of the mutants you’ve put through the process. I know where the money comes from, and who in the military helps you siphon it from the general DoD budget. I know about projects such as the one in Cuba back in 1965. Maybe you don’t remember that one, El Tigre? I know your kind tend to be mind wiped after a mission. I’m sure your handlers can confirm the details for you if you ask them.”

“I bet they’d let me kill you if I asked, bitch,” Creed whispered as he labored to breathe.

Logan growled and his claws slid out as if by reflex, but he held himself behind me. I forced a grin at Creed, but I felt so awful that I expected the expression was more zombie-like than bitchy.

“Your organization ought to work very hard to keep me alive, Mr. Creed. I made a lot of copies of all the material I unearthed. They’re all neatly packaged, some out on public servers, some in the cloud, some in the hands of various people, ready and waiting for a trigger to send them to all of the members of the US Congress, the Canadian Parliament, NATO, several other government bodies around the world. A few copies go to the entire staff of the Petrie Initiative. That’s the group that’s always in the news making noise about outrageous defense spending. A few more go to mutant organizations that won’t like to hear about experiments forced on mutants to make super soldiers. More go other places, including the American ACLU and the media. Does any of this register with you?”

He stared at me with such hatred that I don’t know how I met his gaze without melting. Maybe I was too lightheaded to be scared.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Do you know what the trigger is to release all of this? I’ll tell you about two. One is my death. If my heart stops beating, if my brain waves go flat, a signal automatically triggers delivery of all those copies. Another one is my direct order. If you mess with me or my friends, for example, the signal goes out. There are several other triggers that I won’t tell you about, so you’ll have to imagine those. Some are time sensitive to trip automatically after a certain length of time. In every case, your kind might stop some of those copies from being delivered, but you won’t stop them all, because the intent is to flood every channel, every market, every medium. That will create more noise, more scrutiny, more calls to account, and more exposure than your organization can survive.”

Logan’s laughter was nearly silent, but I felt it in my chest. A very audible snarl gurgled from Creed’s obstructed throat.

“I understand the need for some of the things your organization does, Mr. Creed,” I said. “So I’ll keep my peace as long as you stay away from me. But if you come after me again, if you so much as sniff in my direction, even if you do your worst, you’ll cut your own throat, and in a fashion you can’t heal. This is the only freebie you’ll get. The next one doesn’t come with a warning.”

A look to Logan, and he gave me a hand up. As awful as I felt, I was going to walk out on my own, even if I leaned on Logan’s arm.

Once we were out of Creed’s sight, Logan caught me before I fell on my face and carried me to the van Creed had used to haul us here. He put me in the front seat, and climbed into the driver’s seat beside me.

“I know you’ve got a concussion. How bad did he cut you?”

“I just want to get out of here. We may not have to go far because I managed to trip my GPS beacon just before Creed took us inside. But if he gets loose, I don’t want to give him another shot at me.”

Logan hotwired the van with professional speed, and he drove us away. His grin was feral.

“What?” I asked, holding my head.

“Couple of things,” he said softly. “First, you handled yourself real well in there. You got yourself out of Creed’s reach fast, and you kept a lid on your reactions even down to your scent. I couldn’t have asked you to do anything different. Can you back up what you told Creed?”

“Every word. In fact, I found out a lot more stuff than is probably safe for me to know, but I don’t have to tell them that. I think I can fill in some of what happened to you while you were in Weapon X.”

Logan nodded acceptance. “So that’s what you meant by plannin’. I’m impressed.”

I propped my head up against the back of the seat. “So was I, when you first told me about Victor Creed. I don’t like being that scared.”

“So I see. Hey, I picked up a couple of souvenirs.”

Logan dropped a cell phone into my lap. It wasn’t mine, and Logan disdained one most of the time, so it was probably Creed’s.

“That ought to buy us some time. Don’t get your fingerprints on it. Check it for any numbers that might add to your info stash, then toss it so nobody can use it to trace us. And I got this for me.”

He held up a key – the one I’d tossed him a few minutes ago.

“You probably know that the chain was adamantium. Whoever comes after Creed’ll have to hack the other end of that chain out of the wall and take him in for surgery. They won’t be able to unlock that chain once they cut down to it. If they can’t pick the lock, they’ll have to cut his head off to get the chain off. Maybe they’ll get the pieces to heal together eventually, but he’ll be out of commission for a while.”

As grisly at that sounded, I laughed – quietly, with a wince. “There’s something to be said for testosterone.”

Logan chuckled. “I’d say estrogen did a damn’ good job this time, darlin’.”

“Enough to convince you to come to France with me?”

Logan’s chuckle grew into a laugh. “Absolutely, darlin’. Absolutely.”

 

* * *

 

Rachel was right about not having to go far before someone picked us up. It took a couple of minutes for her to check Creed’s phone for info, then she tossed it out of the van into the brush. I kept her talking so she wouldn’t drift off to sleep, but she’d only just begun to tell me what she’d learned about Weapon X when the gravel trail joined a paved track. The X-Men’s Blackbird sat in the middle of the intersection.

I pulled up alongside. Hank McCoy was the hulking shadow that stood guard outside, and he held up a hand in greeting.

“Little late with the cavalry, Furball,” I said.

“Glad to see you didn’t need it, Wolverine. Is Omen with you?”

“Walkin’ wounded, but she’s scrappy. Hope you got your little black bag. Class Three concussion and a lot of cat scratches.”

“Bring her on.”

“Bring us a couple of blankets first, would ya?” I asked. Neither Rachel nor I had much left in the way of clothes. “We’re both pretty cut up.”

Hank dashed back aboard for the blankets, and once they were in my hands, he headed back to the plane. I got Rachel out of the van and a blanket around the important parts before I took care of the same for myself. Stubborn woman – she’d lost enough blood that her color was ashy, and her steps weren’t all that steady, but she insisted on walking up the gantry. When we got on board, a lot of X-Men paused in various stages of gearing up. Behind the Beast were Red, Storm, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Iceman, Shadowcat – even Cyclops. Kitty sucked in her breath at the blood covering Rachel, and Kurt crossed himself hastily.

Rachel smiled wearily. “I guess they thought we were in trouble, Logan.”

I steered Rachel into the nearest seat and moved out of the way for Hank to do his usual magic. “You are kind of a mess, kid.”

“Oh. It isn’t mine,” she hastily said to the others, meaning the blood. “Well… most of it isn’t.”

“Good. We need you back in one piece, Rachel,” ‘Ro called forward from the pilot’s seat. “We can’t afford for Logan to keep breaking everything in the Danger Room so often.”

That struck home, and I glowered at ‘Ro. She stuck her tongue out at me and turned back to the controls. As soon as everyone belted in, she had us in the air.

During the short trip home, Kurt quietly related how some of the kids had noticed Rachel’s car still in front of the mansion and her things strewn around and my blood splattered over the gravel. A tuft of Creed’s hair had told them who’d made the mess. Chuck had been dispatched to Cerebro, but he hadn’t even gotten to the device before Rachel’s GPS signal had been relayed to the mansion. The Blackbird had launched minutes later.

We were back at the mansion in a matter of minutes. Creed hadn’t bothered to travel far before he indulged himself. Suited me. I didn’t have to say much about what had happened.

Hank and I took Rachel down to the infirmary for the close to thirty stitches she needed. I hated those raw tears in Rachel’s pale skin, but only one was of any long-term concern, and a good plastic surgeon would erase the scars quickly enough. Hank did the job with his usual delicate and expert touch, and made sure Rachel downed a healthy dose of antibiotics in case Creed had left any bugs behind. He sent me to the showers to clean up while he did a CAT scan of Rachel’s brain. When I came back, he’d followed the CAT scan with analgesics, and I helped Rachel clean away the last of the blood.

“All right, my dear,” Hank growled when we were done. “That’s the last of it. Your brain looks fine. You’re going to be sore for a few days from all the stitches. Keep them dry for another 24 hours, then you can shower gently and rebandage them. Now, I know you’re tired, but you can’t go to sleep quite yet. Most of the nausea and blurred vision are from what Sabretooth drugged you with, not trauma to your brain, but I want to watch things a while longer.” He glanced at me. “Maybe I can convince Logan to keep you awake for a while longer.”

“Maybe you can,” I said. “We can run through a few Danger Room sims, work off some adrenaline –”

Rachel giggled, but Hank shot her a quelling look.

“You stay out of the gym until a week after those stitches come out,” Hank ordered Rachel. He turned his intense gaze on me. “And you, stick to conversation. Quiet conversation.”

I shrugged. “Guess I remember how to do that.”

Hank glanced at Rachel. “With the right people, Logan, I’m sure you have no problem at all. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

He padded quietly out of the infirmary, leaving Rachel and me to look at each other.

Rachel shivered under the thin infirmary blanket. “I’m freezing.”

“Damn, I forgot.” I picked up the bundle of clothes I’d brought down after I’d showered. “I borrowed these from Kitty. She’s closest to your size. There’s nothin’ left of your own stuff but your workout gear, and I figured that wouldn’t feel so good on stitches.”

“Thanks.”

We eased Kitty’s soft fleece over Hank’s careful bandaging. Then I helped her upstairs to settle in the corner of one of the cushy sofas where the kids usually played video games, and put a big mug of hot tea in her hands. Rachel sipped gratefully and curled up as best she could around her stitches. I settled close beside her with a beer, and eased her legs over mine so that we touched.

Rachel regarded my beer bottle with a smirk. “You know, I really tried to coax my body into that healing factor of yours, but it didn’t work.”

“I’d give you a piece of it if I could, darlin’.”

“Hmm,” she replied with a smile. She sipped for a few moments in silence, yawned widely, then snuggled me closer. “Logan?”

“Yeah, darlin?”

“Why didn’t you kill Victor Creed tonight?”

I met her eyes squarely. “If he’d raped you, I would’ve.”

“He came close.” Her voice was soft, reflective, merely stating a fact without recrimination or anger.

I offered my hand to her. After a moment, she took it. “Takin’ a life is never somethin’ I want to do, Rachel. But… I was gonna kill him for hurtin’ you,” I admitted, once her eyes had lit with the glow of her talents. “I wanted to. So when I cut his throat, I cut hard.”

“I heard you strike bone,” she said softly.

“I was going to finish the job. I should have. But you were right there. Centimeters away. All that blood ran out of him and onto you, as if I’d cut you, too. I didn’t want to do that again. I didn’t want you to watch me do that again.”

She nodded, sympathy and acceptance and thanks in her expression. Then she ducked her head.

“You know in the sim, when I… I ripped out his throat?”

“Yeah.”

A very long pause. “I… did that to make it easier for me to cut through the rest of his neck. I was going to finish the job, too. But….”

“‘S okay, darlin’. ‘S okay.”

She exhaled hard, took a couple more sips of her tea.

“Please don’t tell anyone about what I said to Victor Creed.”

“Don’t plan to. Dunno how you found out what you did, but you hit pay dirt. You don’t want that to get around.”

Rachel grimaced. “I learned some horrible stuff, Logan. So frightening. I can’t begin to tell you how frightening. That’s why I went to such lengths to package it so well and planned such a large multi-channel distribution net. What I know won’t keep me alive. The threat of taking what I know public will.”

I nodded. “You pegged it.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, because you lived through it, and they owe you that information. You’ve been trained to resist psychic tampering, too. To tell you the truth, another thing I bought was some good psychic blocks for myself. I don’t want anybody trying to wipe me or figure out what’s in my head. But I can’t tell anyone else. Not even Professor Xavier.”

“Bet he knows some of it already. And it’d be good backup that someone in the right place knows what you know, if not all the ins and outs. Chuck and Hank McCoy are good choices. High integrity, both of ‘em.”

Rachel thought about that. “Maybe. A lot of what I learned is who betrayed whom and why, and who forced whom to do what. A filthy business, all around. You know.”

I nodded. “Yup. I do.”

We shared a look that said it all. Rachel had kicked ass tonight, which would probably hold Victor Creed at bay for a while. There were other things I could consider, such as now hard it might be to keep Rachel’s info current, and how much of a threat Weapon X would think she was. But it was near dawn, and I was tired and grateful to stand down. I let it all go and savored a long, long pull on my beer.

“Hey,” I said when the last drop slid down my throat. “One request.”

Rachel looked up blearily. “What?”

“When your stitches heal, I want to say a proper thank you for things.”

Rachel sat up a little more. “Yes?”

“Most of this stuff you bought for yourself – enhanced powers, psychic blocks, sneaky looks into dark corners – more power to you, darlin’. But when I say thank you, leave that nervous system shutdown thing at home, eh?”

Rachel’s smile was slow and wide. “Absolutely.”

Hank was wrong. There was nothing Rachel and I needed to say after that.

 

# # #


End file.
